Bill Buckbee, of New Milford, State Representative 67th House District, stands in the Haden House in Harrybrooke Park, in New Milford. Buckbee is executive director of the park. Friday, March 17, 2017, in New Milford, Conn. less

Bill Buckbee, of New Milford, State Representative 67th House District, stands in the Haden House in Harrybrooke Park, in New Milford. Buckbee is executive director of the park. Friday, March 17, 2017, in New ... more

Joshua Smith is the new Superintendent of New Milford Public Schools. April 2016

Joshua Smith is the new Superintendent of New Milford Public Schools. April 2016

Photo: Contributed Photo / Hearst Connecticut Media

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Christine Carver, Bethel superintendent of schools.

Christine Carver, Bethel superintendent of schools.

Photo: Contributed Photo / Hearst Connecticut Media

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Danbury area towns planning for new round of state aid cuts

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When the General Assembly spared most towns from the devastating state aid cuts Gov. Dannel P. Malloy initially called for in this year’s budget, many municipal officials let out a sigh of relief.

But that feeling was squashed quickly when the governor made a round of cuts anyway, with some towns across the region seeing hundreds of thousands of dollars in expected state aid disappear.

New Milford was among the hardest hit in the Danbury area — the town will see a loss of more than $1 million.

The statewide cuts, totaling $880 million in state agency funding and municipal aid grants, are required in the recently approved budget but legislators didn’t say how they should be made, the Malloy administration said.

Some legislators disagree.

Malloy’s “recent action shifts more pain onto municipalities and is a blatant disregard for the will of the legislative leaders and the overwhelming majority of legislators who voted for the budget,’’ said House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby.

Klarides called this week for the General Assembly to reconvene and overturn the cuts.

“We really worked hard (on the budget), from the leadership to individual representatives,” Buckbee said. “And the governor sabotaged that. Here we are going back to that overused term — ‘draconian.’ These are draconian cuts.”

The budget approved by the legislature recently and signed by Malloy cut $691,461 in state aid from New Milford in the current fiscal year of the two-year, $41.3 billion budget. Malloy announced last week that he is holding back an additional $1.04 million from the town.

Superintendent of Schools Joshua Smith told the school board this week he is working with the town to address the cuts, which were made to both town and school funding.

Smith said he’s worried this holdback could foreshadow more cuts, including to special education.

“There are real concerns right now,” he said.

In Bethel, the legislature initially cut $457,000 from the town, but Malloy will now slash an additional $686,680. This means Bethel will receive $8 million in state aid, $1.1 million less than it did in the previous fiscal year.

Fearing an $8.1 million cut to school aid, the district had held back on hiring some positions, including an English language learners teacher and support staff.

Superintendent Christine Carver said the Board of Education was discussing what positions to hire for when Malloy announced the additional cut.

“It’s not as if we had hired back all these positions and now we have to lay them off,” she said. “But any of these cuts have impact to the service we give children. Every position we didn’t fill has had an impact on our system.”

Brookfield’s cut was not as harsh as Bethel’s. Malloy’s office said the governor will cut $130,859, in addition to the $110,550 decrease the legislature had planned.

But First Selectman Steve Dunn said he heard Malloy’s cut could be as high as $250,000.

“There’s been so much confusion on this,” he said. “I just wish they would come up with final numbers. Please come up with final numbers.”

Dunn said Brookfield can handle the cut with the $700,000 contingency fund set aside in its 2017-18 budget.

“Brookfield will be able to continue to provide the services we always have to residents,” he said. “It’s a hit and I don’t like it, but we can manage it.”

Ridgefield’s preliminary budget planning also means the town will be able to handle Malloy’s additional cut, First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.

The town had anticipated reductions in the hundreds of thousands during its own budget process, but was only cut about $102,000 when the legislature’s budget passed. Malloy’s cut will take an additional $75,000.

“Don’t get me wrong, that’s a lot of money, but...we had eliminated a lot more than (the $102,000 cut),” Marconi said. “So, this additional $75,000 brings us closer to the break-even, but we’re still okay.”

But Marconi said the cuts still confused and worried him, since they came so soon after the original budget was passed. If state officials knew the cuts needed to be made, he said, they should have taken that into consideration when first crafting the budget.

“So, here we are three weeks later and we’re looking at more cuts?” Marconi said. “If you’re running a business you know where you’re at in any given time. The state and budget-makers should all know where we’re at and I don’t know why they didn’t modify the budget...How do you run a business like that?”

Marconi said that even before the additional cuts were made, he was concerned that the original budget didn’t go far enough to address the state’s deficit. Lawmakers should have included more long-term, structural changes, Marconi said.

“All we did is shuffle the cards in the same old deck,” he said.

Malloy’s office contends that the cuts were called for and necessary.

“These holdbacks represent real, difficult decisions that the bipartisan budget agreement requires state government to make,” said Ben Barnes, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management. “But they’re also necessary in order to give taxpayers, businesses, and bondholders the stability they need and deserve.”

A Malloy spokeswoman added that “it’s becoming clearer by the day that Representative Klarides has a strong case of buyer’s remorse ... This is the budget they crafted and voted for — if they want it changed, they have the authority to come in at any time and pass a new budget.”

Buckbee said he would relish an opportunity to overturn the recent cuts.